Andrew Sage

FORB also launched their official publication, El Despertar, in the same year, and the paper carried articles about the anarchist movements in Europe and Latin America, printed works by authors such as Peter Kropotkin and Anselmo Renzo, published reports of the FORB's activities, named and shamed the known strikebreakers, and encouraged its members to pay their union dues promptly.

Subsequent years would introduce other libertarian newspapers such as La Rebellion, La Tribuna, and Asia El Futuro. After the 1908 coup by Emiliano Goncalves Navarro destabilized the economy and restricted Asuncion's labor movement, anarchism still found strength among rural and tannin industry workers.

Despite increasing hostility from figures like Presidents Gondra and Jara, labor strikes continued, which were met by fierce repression, arrests, and forced deportations. With the outbreak of the Paraguayan Civil War from 1911 to 1912, anarchists and other labor organizations faced a government crackdown. Groups like the FORP became inactive, temporarily at least.

By 1913, in the wake of the war, a schism was emerging as some unions moved toward reformist ideologies, influenced in part by the populist Colorado Party. Meanwhile, FORP reaffirmed its anarcho-syndicalist roots, forming a federal council that included both workers and intellectuals, aiming to rekindle its union activities amidst a wave of reorganization.

Post-World War I, a new surge in demand for Paraguayan exports revitalized labor activism. In 1916, the Corp, or Centro Obrero Regional del Paraguay, took on the role of championing anarcho-syndicalism and labor rights. This movement gained support from a wide network, launching influential publications like El Combate and Renovación.

Other groups like Mayday and the Revolutionary Nationalist Alliance, which sought a federalist union of the peoples of Latin America, also took part in the resurgence of anarchist ideas. In 1922, the Paraguayan anarchists were able to finally establish links with the International Workers' Association.

By the 1930s, Siriaco Duarte emerged as a prominent voice, advocating for workers' rights despite, you know, everything. He was a protege of fellow anarchist and printmaker Felix Cantalicio Aracuyo, a Paraguayan mestizo of mixed indigenous and black ancestry.

At one point, Aracuyo and his comrades had helped organize a tram worker strike in Asunción, which compelled the government to round them up and dump them in the middle of the jungle in Mato Grosso, hoping that they would die.

And yet Aracuyo and his friends made their way through over 1,300 kilometers of mountain jungle, surviving on roots, fruits, and game to make their way back to their hometown of Encarnacion. And speaking of Encarnacion, both Duarte and Aracuyo took part in the little-known attempt at an anarchist uprising in Paraguay, which was actually centered in Encarnacion.

On the 20th of February 1931, a group of 150 workers and students, organized in a couple popular assemblies, took control of the city of Encarnacion with the goal of establishing a libertarian commune, part of a plan to spark a wider anarchist-syndicalist revolution in Paraguay.

This was the culmination of a series of strikes and widespread leafleting by anarchists and students in support of revolution.

It wasn't meant to be centered in Encarnacion, as there was a planned construction worker-led general strike in Asuncion and similar action in Villarica and Concepcion, but key organizers in those struggles and those cities were deported in the days leading up to the action, so those planned actions ended up failing.

After 16 hours, when their efforts were not reinforced by workers and the rest of the nation, the insurrectionists of Encarnacion took over two steamboats and made their way along the river to Brazil. But not before they attacked the Yerba Mate companies and burned the records related to indentured laborers in two ports. Their solidarity never died.

Even after they went through everything they went through, they didn't lose their sight on what really mattered. Sadly, the 17 students and workers who remained in Encarnacion were arrested. Duarte found himself jailed and interned on Margarita Island after Liberal Party President José P. Cuguiari outlawed trade unions.

Other revolutionaries were dropped off in the jungle to die at random points along the Parana River. Seven of the captured 17 met this fate, and the other 10 spent a few months in prison before being deported to Argentina. The movement then faced distinct challenges during the Chaco War from 1932 to 1935 between Paraguay and Bolivia, which halted much of the anarchist activism.

Many anarchists joined the war effort reluctantly, including Duarte, who performed duties in the rearguard while working as a typesetter for various presses, including anarchist presses. With the Paraguayan victory, following the war, the return to domestic concern saw a resurgence of anarchist and labor activities.

The government's crackdown of leftist ideologies in the late 1930s and 1940s under President Mori Niko's rule led to severe repression of anarchist and syndicalist groups.

Duarte spent some time as a worker representative at the National Labor Department, or DNT, but was under considerable fire from the communists, who had taken hold of the trade union movement after anarchism waned in popularity. He finally resigned from his post in 1941 after a workers' coordinating committee of seamen, tram workers, beakers, print workers, and other trades

issued a protest note to President Morinigo threatening to withdraw from the workers' delegate for the infringement of their rights of assembly, to unionize, and to strike. Of course, their protest note was completely ignored. The president's authoritarian tenure pushed several anarchist and socialist organizers into exile.

Duarte himself ended up in exile in Argentina by 1942, but eventually was able to return and reclaim his appointment as a worker representative. But then, not long after, he became a victim of a police crackdown during the 1944 general strike.